My main problem with the HP books is that JKR created a children's book fantasy world that is very charming and funny but doesn't make sense when you think about it from an adult POV. (My favourite example - the ever-revolting Goblins are in total control of the wizarding economy.)
Then she creates characters that feel very real, and would easily fit in adult fiction, but not to ruin The Plot they have to act like total morons - and socially incompetent at that. In RL, every wizard-born kid would know all about Harry and his parents, and Harry would have been told about it from day one. The missing bits would Sirius have told him when they sneaked away from Molly's house-cleaning, hiding out in Buckbeak's room.
Concerning Sev/Marauders: she does a BIG mistake in telling, not showing that Sev was indeed a DE and James grew into a good man. Instead, she shows us Sev at his best, or at least being vulnerable, and James -and Sirius- at their teenage worst.
I have no problems believing in James growing up from a brat to a good man within a few years, because I've seen it over and over, beginning with my own classmates.
But then, had I been at Hogwarts in the Marauders days (I'm in the right age for it ;-) ) I'd have been among them urging Lily to stop defending Snivellus Snape. His friends Avery and Mulciber reminds me of two fifteen-y-o neo-nazis our local paper reported on. They had sprayed Nazi slogans and swastikas on the house where an 80-y-o widow, a concentration camp survivor, lived. I wouldn't want to be friends with them, but not with anyone defending them, either.
For the rest: I don't know anything about English literature, but I've thought from book one that the wizards view on Muggles was very much like the one colonists had for the "locals". Even those calling themselves Muggle supporters are very, very condenscating.
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Date: 2008-06-30 11:08 pm (UTC)Then she creates characters that feel very real, and would easily fit in adult fiction, but not to ruin The Plot they have to act like total morons - and socially incompetent at that. In RL, every wizard-born kid would know all about Harry and his parents, and Harry would have been told about it from day one. The missing bits would Sirius have told him when they sneaked away from Molly's house-cleaning, hiding out in Buckbeak's room.
Concerning Sev/Marauders: she does a BIG mistake in telling, not showing that Sev was indeed a DE and James grew into a good man. Instead, she shows us Sev at his best, or at least being vulnerable, and James -and Sirius- at their teenage worst.
I have no problems believing in James growing up from a brat to a good man within a few years, because I've seen it over and over, beginning with my own classmates.
But then, had I been at Hogwarts in the Marauders days (I'm in the right age for it ;-) ) I'd have been among them urging Lily to stop defending Snivellus Snape. His friends Avery and Mulciber reminds me of two fifteen-y-o neo-nazis our local paper reported on. They had sprayed Nazi slogans and swastikas on the house where an 80-y-o widow, a concentration camp survivor, lived. I wouldn't want to be friends with them, but not with anyone defending them, either.
For the rest: I don't know anything about English literature, but I've thought from book one that the wizards view on Muggles was very much like the one colonists had for the "locals". Even those calling themselves Muggle supporters are very, very condenscating.